arboard side, which was low in the water and away from the island.
Rajah was posted in the chart-room on the bridge with an old spy-glass
Riggs dug up, and the black boy kept steady watch on the island and the
channel, with an occasional turn to the open sea in the hope of raising
a vessel.

The chronometers were gone, along with the other navigating instruments,
the log-book, and manifests. The cabin clock was stopped at twelve, and
Captain Riggs's watch, which had hung over his bunk, was missing.

We found two dead Chinese in the galley, bullet-splintered woodwork,
dried blood, and empty shells and burned rice on the galley stove.
The ship's carpenter had barricaded himself in his workshop, a little
deck-house on the after-deck. The door was open, and we gathered that
he had deserted his stronghold when he heard the water rushing into the
hold, but whether he had been shot or drowned we had no way of knowing.

He had provided himself with a bucket of rice and bottles of water,
evidently with the intention of preparing for a siege. Spent cartridges
at the head of the stoke-hole ladder told of a desperate fight there,
probably before the attack on the bridge by the engineer and his men.

But we wasted no time over these signs of what had happened during the
night, simply observing them as we went over the vessel to see if any of
the crew were in hiding, and seeking such things as might be of use in
building the raft.

All the tools were carried forward, and I helped the captain get off the
hatch-covers of the forehold, and he nailed them together with planks
from the top of the cargo. In this way we made a rude catamaran some
twenty feet long and five feet wide. A plank was put on its edge all
around, making a low freeboard to hold our provisions and to serve as a
protection against bullets in case the pirates should fire upon us while
running ashore.

Life-lines were fastened to the sides, so we could take to the water in
an emergency, and, with our bodies partially submerged, use our pistols
to good advantage and offer poor targets. Captain Riggs seemed to foresee
every possible danger, and went about his preparations to meet the
pirates as calmly and methodically as if he were fitting out to go on a
picnic.

Thirkle had taken every precaution to make the _Kut Sang_ another mystery
of the sea, without so much as a life-buoy being found with her name on
it. We found the ring-buoys hacked to bits, especially that